Intelligent system for non-technical losses management in residential users of the electricity sector

The identification of irregular users is an important assignment in the recovery of energy in the distribution sector. This analysis requires low error levels to minimize non-technical electrical losses in power grid. However, the detection of fraudulent users who have billing does not present a generalized methodology. This issue is complex and varies according to the case study. This paper presents a novel methodology to identify residential fraudulent users by using intelligent systems. The proposed intelligent system consists of three fundamental modules. The first module performs the classification of users with similar power consumption curves using self-organizing maps and genetic algorithms. The second module allows carrying out the monthly electricity demand forecasting through of recursive adjustment of ARIMA models. The third module performs the detection of fraudulent users through an artificial neural network for pattern recognition. For the design and validation of the proposed intelligent system, several tests were performed in each developed module. The database used for the design and evaluation of the modules was constructed with data supplied by the energy distribution company of the Colombian Caribbean Region. The results obtained by the proposed intelligent system show a better performance versus the detection rates obtained by the company.